Donald Trump has been criticizing the federal judge presiding over the Trump University fraud hearings for months. After his most recent comments blew up headlines, Trump first decided to continue his verbal assault on Judge Curiel, only to walk back that decision a day later.

Trumps’ comments drew condemnation from every corner of the Republican party.

In a statement published on his campaign website Tuesday, Trump wrote:

The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard. I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial.

One again, we’ll refer the reader to Pope Hat’s legal analysis on judge recusal located here.

Trump continued:

Due to what I believe are unfair and mistaken rulings in this case and the Judge’s reported associations with certain professional organizations, questions were raised regarding the Obama appointed Judge’s impartiality. It is a fair question. I hope it is not the case.

While this lawsuit should have been dismissed, it is now scheduled for trial in November. I do not intend to comment on this matter any further. With all of the thousands of people who have given the courses such high marks and accolades, we will win this case!

To be clear (because many headlines are distorting his remarks), Trump is not apologizing nor is he walking back his comments, he’s simply saying he will comment no further.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in an interview, Trump suggested Judge Curiel’s Mexican heritage would prohibit the dispensation of unbiased justice:

In an interview, Mr. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border. “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.

You might want to take a little deeper look into this particular group, before making that assumption. Hint: it’s not the same as the National Organization of La Raza. I get that the name La Raza raises alarms, and rightly so. But there’s a valid argument that the word in Spanish doesn’t mean the same thing as the heavily politically charge word race in US english. There’s something lost in translation here.

This whole attack is a very tenuous connection made by degrees of separation. It’s just another low blow character assassination attempt by Trump to try to rattle this judge and create an out for him should things go south in the case. The game is always rigged against Trump so if he wins he’s a hero and if he loses its not his fault. It’s posturing and free media time.

I wish what you are saying was true as to real conditions but we all remember the racist justice Sotomayer when she said that a Latino justice would bring a different justice to the SCOTUS compared to old white men. The only indignant group was the conservatives in Congress. Ginsberg is so biased that anything she says is suspect. I used to have respect for the judiciary but no more. Now getting a good lawyer means getting someone who knows how to select the right court date to get the right judge. Justice flung off her blindfold years ago! Now she is nothing but a wide-eyed topless bimbo!

Everything else you said is complete bullshit. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. IF some lawyer told you any part of that, they lied to you. I don’t know ANY jurisdiction where you can “forum shop” as you suggest. Everywhere I know anything about, your case is assigned by lottery.

Federal judges are just like you or I, and some of them do go bad. But as a population, they tend to be remarkably hard working people who…while holding varied views/prejudices like all of us…don’t let them affect their office.

I’ve read several on-line lawyers who all agree that Curiel’s rulings on the T-rump cases are perfectly sound.

No Tom, I mean literally the translation from Spanish to modern American English. I’m multilingual and I can tell you that while there are quite direct translations for words the majority of the time there is a large difference in usage, context and particularly modern interpretation. Pueblo and gente mean people but have large contextual and historical differences. Raza is similar, and while it is the name of one particular detestable group it’s not a dirty word like race is in our modern English.

To your assertion that we are only splitting hairs in eyes of voters- sure, we can assume that. That doesn’t mean I have to accept it.

Report: Trump University Judge Linked to Group that Calls for Boycott of Trump’s Businesses

“….San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, which is affiliated with the Hispanic National Bar Association.”
“The Hispanic National Bar Association sent out a press release last summer after Donald Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican nominee, announced he was running for president and created a controversy by discussing illegal immigration and crime during his announcement speech.”

“You might want to take a little deeper look into this particular group, before making that assumption. Hint: it’s not the same as the National Organization of La Raza.”

They link to the The Race on their own website. They are one and the same in their goals.

“I get that the name La Raza raises alarms, and rightly so. But there’s a valid argument that the word in Spanish doesn’t mean the same thing as the heavily politically charge word race in US english. There’s something lost in translation here.”

Do Tell: What is your valid argument? And what, precisely, was lost in translation?

I speak Spanish. I have traveled for 40 years in Mexico, Latin America, and South America.

The use of “The Race” in this case is worse than it sounds, understood by those who use it.

Everything for The Race, Nothing for anyone else. The Race is dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States in all of the southwest.

“the judge, who, we believe, happens to be Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine. You know what, I think the Mexicans are gonna end up loving Donald Trump, when I give all these jobs. OK? I think they are gonna end up, I think they’re gonna love. I think they’re gonna love me.”

Predictability is not a tactical virtue. Nor is unpredictability a moral failing.

But in this case, although the press types will doubtless try to badger him into talking more about it, he should have no trouble sidestepping them (as usual). He already did exactly what he appears to have wanted to do, and he most likely won’t visit it again until he sees some advantage to doing so.

He’s reframed this issue to call attention to la Raza, which is a cancer.

And it goes to the central question of this election: is the United States a country or a multiethnic empire. Trump’s various criticisms of the judge point out that if America is a multi-ethnic empire, then his supporters will treat America as a multi ethnic empire.

SUCH a genius…!!!
He destroyed 16 other republicans running for the nomination.
One by one they dropped out. Last man standing Trump!!
And this after the dam republican elites did all they could to stop him.

The only thing the left can do is scream racist! Or depending on the day what ever slop they will be throwing. They have nothing to offer with Crooked Hillary as their candidate.

Did Monica mention that this case (at least one) has been in Curiel’s court for years?

Did she mention that the rulings T-rump is blowing snot bubbles about are OLD, and pre-date the time when T-rump STOPPED being a DREAMER supporting contributor to 5 of the Gang Of 8 amnesty supporters? When he became the immigration hawk and campaign “conservative”? When he and Curiel had a lot in common?

Did she mention that what had him all wee-weed up at his San Diego rally was the decision by Curiel to allow some of the records to be unsealed?

Seems pretty clear that Der Donald was upset that people were about to see the facts in the case. Not good…for Der Donald.

Wow. So then Trump’s whole (lame) premise that the judge is biased due to Trumps position on Mexican immigration is a lie because it wasn’t Trumps position at the time the rulings in question were made? So it’s revisionary discrimination against his evolution on the topic, before the fact or something. Man that’s mind blowing.

I’m gonna watch back to the future 2 and then 12 monkeys to settle my mind now.

I hope people, especially hispanics, are picking up on the La Raza angle. He sure ties the left in knots. The nice quotes from Sotomayer and just after two weeks ago they were criticizing his All White SC choices lolol I really hope average people are picking up on this. . . .

Otherwise this will all be for naught. It sure does piss of the left though lolololol

A lot of this dust up is due to the East Coast, and Midwest as in Chicago, vernacular when it comes to high level identifiers for people. Growing up we referred to people by their ethnic background without even thinking about it. Referring to people as Italians, Irish, Jews, eventually Mexicans didn’t mean that that was their literal national affiliation, it was just a way of sorting people out. He didn’t mean that this judge was a ‘Mexican’ national if that’s what anybody could possibly be thinking.

“Because of Donald Trump’s candidacy, because of the things he said about Latinos and Muslims, a number of major national companies pulled out of funding the Republican Convention and then to be fair, and not to show favoritism towards us, they pulled out and didn’t fund us as well,” Rendell said.

Dumb article….the judge is Mexican (clarified as of Mexican heritage). That is not a racist statement; it’s more of that lefty BS to try and make it racist. As in, the judge can call himself Mexican, but white males can’t (they must strictly refer to him as American).

Trump quite clearly in the interview stated that his ties to groups that support illegal immigration could be a conflict of interest for the judge.

The guy who interviewed him tried more than a dozen times to bait him into saying something worse and that’s all they got. Then, the rest of the GOP wank fest crowd decided it was a moment where they could try to score race brownie points and damage their perceived enemy in the process.

And I and all sane people will keep laughing at your pathetic attempt to whitewash the clear meaning of “La Raza” that all these groups use. They choose those words to describe their organization for a reason. Every single one.

Mario Obledo, California Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and California State Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Governor Jerry Brown, also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton,

And, the co- founder of Judge Curiel’s Lawyers Association:

“California is going to be a Hispanic state. Anyone who doesn’t like it should leave.”

You all are missing the important point in this, by arguing over the meaning of term La Raza.

What happened is that Judge Curiel made some questionable decisions, with regards to this case, and The Donald went to the streets to put pressure on him. And apparently it worked. One day he is releasing the entire case file, under FOIA, and a couple of days later he is sealing part of it again, after Trump makes his statements. And, there have been some other questionable rulings made by Judge Curiel. But, the Donald didn’t stop there. he managed to sucker nearly all of his enemies into siding with Curiel, by making it sound as though he was objecting to him simply because his parents were Mexican. Then, out of the blue, all of these associations with Latino activist groups start cropping up. Knowing how modern journalists operate, I doubt that they came up with these affiliations on their own. So, now it looks like leading Republican politicians are supporting activist groups such as La Raza. Gotta love it.

So, the question is, is Donald Trump stupid, but incredibly lucky? Or is he a master strategist who is playing his enemies like a Stradivarius? Humm. Time will tell.

What decisions, specifically, do you assert are “questionable,” and how, exactly is going to “the street” to question them a legitimate legal strategy for obtaining relief?

As for the “under seal” aspect, you have completely misunderstood what occurred. Frequently, especially in complex litigation, discovery and procedural determinations are first made by Federal Magistrates. They are the primary “judge” in the first instance, and their decisions are then reviewed and either endorsed by the trial judge or revised.

In the vast majority of litigation, documents are not put under seal at all – in this case, they were put under seal because the plaintiffs did not object to TU/T asking.

The documents were not re-sealed, they were temporarily resealed until very small amounts of personal information were redacted, and then unsealed again. To the extent that a “mistake” was made in releasing documents with personal information, that is the fault of both TU/T’s lawyers and the Magistrate, for not catching it. None of the since-redacted information worked to the detriment of TU/T.

Trump is doing this because he knows he would never get past the Ha-Ha test if his lawyers actually attempted to make their case that Curiel is biased.

Any modest amount of research on the issue of judicial bias would teach you that you are wrong.

I think that maybe Trump ran for President solely so he could gain enough clout to attack this judge and win the case by putting pressure on him, because he’s afraid of losing on the merits.

Now that would be real genius. If people really believe he did this to smoke out the Republicans to call him racist and “expose them” to the “base”, why in the world would he do that when he’s demanded their support, and is counting on the party for the local turnout?

Were you born stupid, or did you have to work at it?
If Trump had gave in to all the demands of the people suing and let them have all they wanted, it would have cost him one tenth of what he spent running for president.

Trumps argument’s, and the people who parrot them here, assume ignorance on the part of everyone else. Trump University’s legal problems started long before he was ever on the Republican party radar, so any suggestion that political bias is at play is nonsense. Even if he was concerned about political bias, the time to raise the issue is either a) when the judge is first assigned, or b) when the case is completed in order to prepare an appeal. Trump certainly knows that nothing can be done at this point – all he can do is change the political perceptions.

Curiel is not a member of La Raza, at least not the La Raza we all know, and is not Mexican. Trump lied about both those items, and then lied again when he said that he never claimed it was because the judge was Mexican. Trump also omitted information that Curiel took on a Mexican drug cartel at great personal risk to himself. Curiel has also shown his professionalism by not responded to Trump.

A top school MBA program costs $150,000+, takes two years, is hyper selective, and still can’t promise you more than a foundation to build a career on. Trump University was promising much much more for much less. A glowing testimonial from an excited student about to embark on their road to riches means nothing. You have to document the students income gains after two years or ten years and divide them by the tuition to see what the ROI is. That’s just obvious.

At this point of 56 comments it’s Ragspierre at 8, vs Turd on the edge at 6!
Between them they’ve made 25% of the comments.
My money’s on Rags. He has yet to get his second wind!
I’m gratified to see they’re doing their jobs & keeping all the L I bobble-heads nodding in unison. What would they think without their gov’t monitoring duo’s astute directions?

Yes, especially a warning about how legal issues are all too often mired in political issues. It is this cross-contamination that leads outsiders to really distrust the justice/legal system. This is a great example, from every direction: the plaintiffs(and their legal team), the defendant, and Judge Curiel.

The attorney group leading the lawsuit against Trump are heavily involved in Democrat politics and have paid Bill and Hillary Clinton $675,000 for “speeches”. The lead plaintiff bailed.

The defendant is basically Donald Trump, with all his political and media complications.

The Judge is a member of the HNBA which has called for boycotting Donald Trump business.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Judge Curiel could end up on the Supreme court…. Who knows.

2. [Trump claim:] The original lead plaintiff withdrew because “she was a disaster” and “she couldn’t win.” This is one of the more galling lies that Trump has repeatedly told throughout his sob story about this case, and he has never once been challenged to his face about it, that I’ve seen. The truth is that Trump’s legal team made this woman – whose name is Tarla Makaeff – go through living hell as part of scorched earth tactics. They countersued her individually and dragged her through separate litigation that was so extensive that at the end of it – which she won – the judge awarded her an astounding $800,000 in legal fees.

She also alleged (and who does not believe her?) that both Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly threatened to ruin her financially for pursuing the suit, regardless of how long it takes. Given that this suit was started five years ago, and that Trump is now running for President, while followed by a bunch of slobbering hate-filled lunatics who harass everyone who dares to disagree with Trump, Makaeff furthermore says (and who does not believe her?) that she does not wish to continue being harassed by Trump, his lawyers, and his fans for the duration of this awful Presidential campaign.

For five years, Makaeff has been the face of the Trump University plaintiffs, and Donald Trump tried to destroy her life for it. He shows every indication of continuing to do so for all eternity. Ordinary people cannot deal with this kind of perpetual pressure in their lives. That is why she withdrew from the case.”

I seem to recall that Trumples is in court because of Trump U fraud charges. The judge is not. Do his supporters know this?

Could it be that an overwhelming sense of “Oh-Oh” and a coming day of reckoning may be the reason why Trumples has so loudly impugned the judge recently and now poses as a victim? The victim thing has worked well for him and his supporters who also presume they are victims of “The System.”

In case you missed it last night, I took a detailed look at the judicial career of Gonzalo Curiel, the U.S. District Court judge handling two of the Trump university cases. If he’s a Latino-nationalist, hard-line partisan activist from the bench, he’s hidden it well in his decisions and his reputation among lawyers in California. He’s ruled against Indian tribes, endangered-species activists, and hotel employee unions. Here’s a surprising fact that might appeal to Donald Trump: as a prosecutor, he defended the use of testimony that may been obtained through torture by Mexican law-enforcement officials.

“The government is not here to deny there is a possibility of torture,” Curiel declared in a ruling for a U.S. district court in 1997. “There are serious allegations of torture. But the forum for those allegations to be aired is the Government of Mexico.”

A lot of Trump fans see Curiel’s partiality as an open-and-shut case, pointing to his membership in La Raza Lawyers of San Diego, also sometimes referred to as the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association. Curiel’s been a member since at least 2007, and the group held a reception honoring the judge on May 25. A lot of media reports point out that the group is distinct from the Latino advocacy organization the National Council of La Raza, but for what it’s worth, La Raza Lawyers of San Diego links to the national group on its web page.

(Know who else was once a member of the La Raza Lawyers Association? Fox News contributor Kimberly Guilfoyle, who’s been a pretty ardent defender of Donald Trump.)

When nominated for his seat on the U.S. District Court in 2011, Curiel listed La Raza Lawyers of San Diego among the ten bar associations and professional groups he belonged to and declared, in a legal affidavit, “To the best of my knowledge, none of the organizations discriminates or formerly discriminated on the basis of sex, race, religion or national origin.” He told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “The judicial process must be administered fairly without regard to a person’s background, economic situation, or personal situation. Cases must be decided based upon admissible evidence and the applicable law.”

“Empathy does not play a role in the judicial process,” Curiel wrote in response to questions from Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), contradicting the perspective of President Obama. “A judge protects the ‘little guy’ — and the ‘big guy’ — by applying the law fairly and evenhandedly to all of the parties whether they are ‘little’ or ‘big.’

Curiel also differed from Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who defended justices’ citing precedents in foreign laws and asked, “Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?”

“Foreign law does not constitute binding precedent for a U.S. judge. In general, foreign law should not be considered in making decisions or rulings,” Curiel told the committee. “However, in certain limited circumstances, such as international commerce cases involving contracts governed by laws of other countries, it may become necessary to consider foreign law to properly decide a case.”

He added he was “committed to following precedent faithfully even if I disagree with such precedent.”
—Jim Geraghty

Poor, poor, pitiful Trumps. If only his Trump U was just like he had promoted. If only the Trump U reality was one-tenth the fantasy of his campaign promises. Then Trumps wouldn’t have to face a judge or a jury. But hey! Trumps is Mr. Litigious.

Final total after 71 comments : Rags 14, Edge remains at 6. Total for both, 20. Just as I predicted Rags found his second-wind. Raised the percentage to almost 28% almost by himself with no help from Edge!
Impressive. Just as I predicted he would.
I am prescient!

Clarification :
This is now my 3rd & final comment on this thread. To 14 for Rags.
The percentage includes comments of both rags & edge before edges final comment just above. 20 total. I calculated the percentage without a calculator. By calculator the percentage is just over .28%.